Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Neither of the two troops had more than a thousand soldiers. Yet, none of their members were ordinary people. They were the tough soldiers at least in the Building Foundation Stage, equipped with the finest weapons and armor and riding the most ferocious animals. Well-trained, they truly gave the feeling that they were an unstoppable tsunami when they were rushing forward with their fighting will reverberating!

Even the high-level Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage and even the Nascent Soul Stage would not want to stand in the way of those two iron troops!

The two torrents almost discovered their opponent simultaneously. Like two attracted magnets, they crashed toward each other without dodging. Their unstoppable aura reminded Li Yao of two high-speed crystal trains that were running toward each other!

Shua! Shua! Shua!

The soldiers of both troops were adept at reining their mounts. While they were rushing, they cast spells, drew their bows, or summoned their swords on the back of the bumpy animals. Thousands of weapon auras, fire balls, and sharp arrows around which lightning was dancing drew devastating arcs in the air, brushed past each other, and landed upon the enemy.

Occasionally, some of the auras and arrows crashed in midair, resulting to the colorful balls of light exploding. The broken pieces that were rotating rapidly sprained down like flowers!

Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi!

Hazy spiritual shields were rising around the battle formations of the two parties, but they could not block all the auras and arrows. More and more people were shot by the arrows. Half of their body was electrified and burnt, and some even lost their entire arm during the explosions. Yet, they did not say anything when they crouched on their Dragon Wolves and horses. Even if they were about to die, they were destined to make their mounts drag their bones into the enemy’s chest!

Boom!

The two torrents finally crashed brutally!

There were few fancy tricks on the battlefield. The two parties barely stopped. After a brief stalemate like the dragonflies dipping on the water, they pierced through the enemy’s formation and swapped sides with the enemy.

After the single encounter, hundreds of broken bodies were already left on the ground. The battle formations of both parties were significantly sparser than before. However, under the command of their leading generals, they soon regrouped and adjusted their direction, ready to launch the second wave of attacks!

The party that regrouped into a new attack formation and adjusted to the best direction for the next assault while maintaining the high morale would likely be the final victor in the battle!

Li Yao saw that Emperor Phoenix was leading the charge at the front of the Fiery Phoenix Legion on a horse that had wings on its back and colorful long tails behind the hindquarters.

Perhaps because he despised his feminine face, he was wearing a mask that had been shaped like a phoenix bathing in fire. The long beak and the bulging eyes, all made of crimson crystals, were emitting indescribable brutality. Together with the long spear in his hand, he was like a totally different person from when Li Yao had met him a couple of days ago.

At the front of the Dragon Wolf Knights, on the back of a tall and majestic Dragon Wolf whose hair was pure black, there was a Ghost Qin warrior with a typical look of his people. His cheekbones were high, his eyes looked like almonds, and the gold rings on his ears were dangling to his shoulders, producing clanging sounds. He was wearing a hat made of bear hide, but even the head of the bear had somehow been fashioned into the hat after being refined through special liquids. At first glance, he was like a great bear that had stood on its feet!

It was Han Baling, the leader of the Ghost Qin and the greatest headache for the Great Qian Dynasty!

There were barely any grudges between Li Yao and Qi Changsheng, but for Emperor Phoenix and Han Baling, they were the best example for ‘sworn enemies’!

The flames of spiritual energy on them, one side red and the other black, were spreading out infinitely like fire that had been added with oil. The snow field below their feet was cracking nonstop, and gaps that looked like spider webs were appearing!

“Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture!” Qi Changsheng grimaced. “Han Baling is dueling with your lousy emperor right now. Although I don’t like Han Baling, I like the louse emperor even less. If you choose to help your emperor, I’ll have to go and help Han Baling. The result will not be any different from right now, except that the two of us may have to blow each other’s brains out. Why bother?

“I suggest we stay here and see which of them wins the battle. What do you say?”

Li Yao replied with a nod. He did not intend to interfere with the fight between Emperor Phoenix and Han Baling in the first place.

Although Han Baling was one of the ambitious Four Rapscallions, there might be even greater schemes behind Emperor Phoenix.

Before everything was clear, Li Yao’s priority was definitely to preserve his strength.

He shifted his attention to search for the other super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

The super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were like fireflies on a dark night when they activated their astonishing spiritual energy for self-protection in the middle of the ice devils. He found them without any trouble.

Ba Xiaoyu and Master Bitter Cicada were confronting Wan Mingzhu, who was leading more than ten gold, glittering zombie kings, while Qi Zhongdao and Yan Liren were faced with Wang Xi and more than ten experts who looked like phantoms and seemed to be the elite assassins of the Ghost Character.

What surprised Li Yao for a moment was that Wang Xi had resumed his generally-known appearance. He looked like a true middle-aged scholar.

The two parties were all holding their weapons calmly and did not get into a fight right away.

After all, other than the few of them, there were dozens of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators on the battlefield. Those from the Grand Mystery Sect, the Purple Pole Sword Sect, and other major sects might not necessarily listen to their commands.

The Divine Palace and the Cloud Qin Gold Statues had not yet been seen. Except for Emperor Phoenix and Han Baling, who were each other’s sworn enemies, nobody was willing to throw out all their trump cards.

The cracking sounds that pierced through the mist in the beginning and caused the dispersion of the mist were still echoing on the battlefield, attracting the attention of all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators including Li Yao and Qi Changsheng.

The sounds came from the depths of the snow field.

It seemed like a bottomless gap had been created in the ground. The immense attraction force in the hole was absorbing all the mist nearby, producing a remarkable view that looked like a white tornado.

When the mist was almost exhausted by the gap, everybody was finally able to get a general picture of the snow field.

It was much more than a simple ‘gap’; it was more like a splendid canyon with shining, translucent cliffs, leading to a dark, boundless underground world!

Crack! Crack!

The canyon in the ice that was thousands of meters long and hundreds of meters wide was still growing, as if a pair of invisible hand was still mauling the earth and tearing it half. The broken ice on the two sides of the canyon was collapsing and rolling into the canyon. But the feeble sound of collisions did not come over until more than ten seconds later!

“Not good!”

Floating at an altitude of hundreds of meters, Li Yao noticed before anyone else that, when the mist was dispersing, the snow field below him was perfectly round. The hundreds of square kilometers in the center was the flattest plateau, which was surrounded by a circle of towering mountains.

It was a very typical crater, caused by an enormous meteorite or something else when it hit the ground heavily.

The snow field at the center was as smooth as a mirror, without the slightest rumple. Also, its color was entirely different from the rocks around, suggesting that it was just a thick shell of pure ice that did not have the least solid rock!

It appeared that a long time ago, a meteor or some other artificial object had hit the crust here, leaving an enormous crater.

At that time, the Land of Eternal Night had probably not been so cold. The rainwater gradually gathered and formed a special lake in the crater.

Later, as the days went by, the temperature gradually dropped, freezing the crater lake into an enormous ice block.

But for some reason, only the topmost part of the ice block was frozen, and the remaining parts were all hollow!

The thunderous noise that they had heard at the beginning was the sound of the ice shell breaking apart.

It was a pity that the two parties were still attacking each other brutally and releasing their spiritual energy and magical equipment without any reserve. They were savaging the earth as hard as they were savaging their enemy.

Hard as the ice shell might have been, it could not withstand the collective bombardment of thousands of Cultivators. Therefore, it broke apart from the middle!

When the raging cracks spread out nonstop and surpassed the tipping point, the avalanche began!

The ice shell almost a hundred kilometers in diameter fell apart in the blink of an eye. It rose high above first before it collapsed into the abyss helplessly like a ship that had an accident on the ocean.

Most of the Cultivators were still fighting on the ice shell. Few of them realized what was going on. Even if they did, they were hardly able to spurt spiritual energy and fly into the sky in time while in such a harsh environment!

Many of them fell into the abyss amid the broken ice. Some were rushing here and there in the middle of the ice that was sliding like a waterfall, trying to escape, only to be smashed by a few giant rocks of ice.

Some fell into the depths of the canyon while waving their hands and feet, and there was no telling what happened to them after the hazy white smoke they raised!

The heated battlefield was disrupted by the unexpected change. The fortunate Cultivators at the periphery of the ice lake all looked at each other in bewilderment, stunned by the enormous crater that had shown up in front of them out of nowhere.

Even Emperor Phoenix and Han Baling’s troops were divided into two sides by the canyon almost a hundred meters wide. Restraining their respective troops, they looked at the canyon in suspicion.

The ice canyon was like a lake whose water had been pumped away. It was in the most precise circle.

Under the cover of the ice shell above, the rocks thousands of meters below the ground must have been blocked from the world for hundreds of thousands of years. They were releasing the glamorous bluish colors. Natural blue crystals were also growing in the middle of the crevices, making the place look like a gorgeous, splendid palace!

A silver, magnificent building was standing in the deepest part of the ice canyon. It was made purely of metal, yet there was no sign of rust whatsoever after such a long time. Instead, a layer of vague silver light was reflected on the surface, which was fluctuating unpredictably like the ocean. One could not help but feel the urge to worship it.

“Divine Palace!”

“This must be the Divine Palace!”

There was no telling who shouted first, but after a moment, everybody stopped fighting and roared frantically!